For three seasons I have tried to grow melons. The first two years I planted Minnesota Midget (an orange, cantaloupe type) and Jenny Lind (a green musk melon). The chickens ate them all before we had a taste. I also tried the heirloom Sugar Baby watermelon with high hopes for this little baby, but ended up with teeny plants and no melons. (As an aside, Sugar Baby watermelon always makes me want to say, “Rubber baby buggy bumpers.” What? Okay, moving on.)

After the chicken feasting fiasco, we fenced in the garden (yes, free range chickens and veggie gardens don’t mix). I decided to grow just the watermelons this year, mostly because I really wanted garden-fresh watermelon and didn’t want to give any other melon my energy. I follow a three strikes rule in my garden, allowing a plant to misbehave for three seasons before I give it the heave-ho from my plot. So, my dear Sugar Baby had its last season ahead of it, and I had no idea what to expect.

For the past month I have watched, shocked, as melon after melon grew from the vine. Although none have ripened quite yet – maybe this is a little bit of counting chickens before they hatch, but I’m going to feign ignorance and go back to counting (one, two, three…) – I do hope to eat one within the next few weeks.

At the farmers’ market today I spoke with an acquaintance who grows quite a bit of produce both to sell and to sustain his family. We’ve never talked about growing before, but we had a great conversation about the merits of planting broccoli in April (which could require digging through the snow here) and the overabundance of yellow wax beans this year. I mentioned that my watermelon had finally produced this summer, and he said, “Yeah. They love this hot weather. It’s a good year for watermelon.”

I mulled this over on our way home. Why hadn’t the hot weather thing occurred to me? It’s the one major difference from the past two growing seasons. Also, why was hot so good for watermelons? A quick trip to ask my trusty friend, Google, turned up the answer: watermelons come from Africa. Oh, right. The desert. Hot. Got it.
Armed with this knowledge, I will be growing my watermelons under hoop houses or a-frames from now on. If it ain’t hot, my melons will be covered to make it so. This has also taught me, once again, the importance of researching a plant’s origins so I’ll know where it will grow best (if at all) in my garden.

What new gardening tidbit have you learned (or relearned) lately?

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 4th, 2007 at 1:23 pm and is filed under fruit gardening, gardening, heirloom plants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.